The annual Watermill Summer Concert on Saturday will see an unusual pairing onstage: Rufus Wainwright with special guest Kylie Minogue.

“She really has pipes, which is rare in the pop world,” said Wainwright of the Australian diva. “In Europe, she’s a superstar.”

Even heads of state think so: The French awarded Minogue the Chevalier de L’ordre des Arts et Lettres, and Queen Elizabeth made her an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

On these shores, she may be best known for her catchy pop tune “Can’t Get you Out of My Head,” but she will have a chance to show Americans her more artistic side at the Watermill Center with Wainwright. As Minogue said via e-mail: “I’m a great admirer of his work and was thrilled when he came to see my concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC last year.”

And while Watermill, the Southampton arts center founded by Robert Wilson, is no Hammerstein, Minogue said she’s into the small settings.

“I absolutely adore doing these types of one-off gigs,” she said. “To share these moments with fellow artists, to be able to go ‘off-piste’ and perform different songs and different styles is like food for the creative soul.

The Watermill concert is part of a productive year for Wainwright: His latest album, “All Days are Nights: Songs for Lulu,” a tribute of sorts to his recently departed mother, singer Kate McGarrigle, was released out in April. In November, he’lll perform “Five Shakespeare Sonnets” with the San Francisco Symphony, which commissioned the work.